A Natural Horsemanship Clinic was hosted by HSB and held at Lentswe Farm, Mmamashia, on Saturday 7th November, 2015, by kind permission of Ludi and Elmarie Scheffer. The clinic ran from 9.00am until 6.30pm. The visiting horsemen were father and son, Bertie and Marco Roux from Bloemfontein where they have their own yard called Roux Horsemanship. They are skilled horsemen who have trained in America for three years. They focus on basic ground work and solve behavioural problems through effective communication using Body Language.
In 2014 Roux Horsemanship visited the well-known Callaho Warmblood stud to assist with the backing of young warmbloods and also discussed ideas with their riders. Callaho also sent one filly back with them for further training at their yard in Bloemfontein.
At the Clinic at Lentswe Farm, Bertie and Marco had a small microphone near their mouths whilst they were working with each horse and a sound system on the back of their truck transmitted their voices clearly for all the spectators to hear. The cost of the clinic was BWP50.00 for a Spectator Entry. For a Non HSB member to bring a horse to be worked on was BWP1500.00 and for a member of HSB to bring a horse the cost was BWP1000.00. Cold drinks and wors rolls were on sale throughout the day. Ludi’s staff from Samsung set up the arena area for the horses and the covered area for spectators and helped throughout the day and also cleared up the area after the event.
Problem solving
There were six horses that were worked on. Three had behavioural problems. These were “Schalla Schalk” owned by Danielle Scheffer, “Schalla Ishmael” owned by Ludi Scheffer and “Gunston” owned by Jerileigh du Preez. Three horses were to be backed. These were Nico Vos’s Stallion “Knight”, Allan Botha’s horse “Night Fever” and Jan Marie’s horse “Kamal”.
The clinic was very well supported, in particular by our enthusiastic Endurance Riders. Thank you to the almost forty spectators for making the huge effort to travel to this clinic. Talita Potgieter and Darryn Nicholson travelled all the way from Maun, Jan Marie Alberts and her patient father travelled from Francistown and Willie and Louise Herbst came from Lobatse to name but a few. Nico Vos transported his stallion all the way from Sand Veld, Letlakhane near Orapa. Jan Marie brought her five year old Arab mare from Francistown to be backed and Ludi transported Allan Botha’s horse from Vryberg for the clinic.
The spectators were treated to a full mesmerising day where Bertie and Marco showed how these six horses could be trained using their incredible skills through their body language. Feed-back from Jan Marie on Monday afternoon was; “ I have just ridden my mare again now and I could not be happier”
And from Jerileigh’s Mum, Frances, “Jerileigh said it was an absolutely amazing clinic and she feels so inspired after it. The work that she has started doing with Gunston has already proven fruitful over the past two days”
We all hope that Roux Horsemanship will be available to return to Botswana next year for another wonderful clinic.
Text and photography: Sarah Ward